X-Com: Götterdämmerung
by A-C15
Summary: Tapping into the ultimate potential of the human race attracts unintended attention. XCom is going to discover that there are things out there that even the Elders dread.
1. Prologue: Purple eyes

The roar of the engines brought him back to reality. He as strapped to a pallet, that much he understood. He also could hear voices, but he couldn't make the words until a towering black man leaned closer.

"Are you really telling me that we lost three soldiers for this stupid thing?"

The stupid thing blinked.

"Careful, Wolf, I think that you could offend it."-a female voice replied with and amused tone.

Wolf shrugged.

"All I am saying is that he doesn't look like any ADVENT VIP we extracted before. He looks like a little boy to me. He can't be that important."

"Would you two shut up?"-Another female voice retorted. "We were ordered to bring him alive."

"Like it was so easy. They had a Sectopod guarding him. A goddam Sectopod."

Another face leaned. A woman with white hair… and strange purple eyes.

"Are you reading something, Wraith?" –the first voice inquired.

The man in the pallet tried to focus.

"Only pain. He is unable to think straight, but he is awake."

Wolf laughed loudly.

"No wonder. He was being beaten to a pulp by three Mutons. He is one tough son of a bitch."

"Why try to kill him? And, more important, why don't shoot him with their weapons?"

"Who knows, Firefly?They are aliens."

The pilot announced that they were about to land into the Avenger.

"Well, at least we made it. We don't even know his name…"

The man whispered.

"Ad…am."

"Look, he is able to communicate! He would be useful before we shoot him."

The purple eyed woman, more like a girl, concentrated.

"He is confused. He doesn't remember a thing."

"I wouldn't remember anything, either, if I was working for alien bastards only to be captured by X-COM."

They took him Adam to the infirmary, were the staff looked at them with disapproval.

"You didn't have to crush him to subdue him."

"It wasn't us. Mutons were smashing him, we saved him."

"That's a new one, Wolf. Explain it to the Commander, will'ya?"

The three soldiers left the infirmary, but the one called Wraith looked back. She could have sworn that he saw something… but it was gone already.

The blue eyes of the man stared back. He looked… hopeful?


	2. Scratch

Central Officer Bradford was the only high ranking staffer left from the war 20 years before, and he knew the feeling. They were making enough progress to slow down the AVATAR project, which it's sinister goal was, but they were losing too many soldiers in the process. XCOM needed some good tactical advantage before any new nasty alien nasty surprise froze them in their tracks.

And them the Commander ordered that last operation. Of course, the Informant had provided the info and the much needed supplies, but it turned to be absurdly difficult. The so called ADVENT VIP was being protected by something that resembled a garrison, and when that garrison crumbled, they tried to kill him.

Even worse, the boy consistently failed to remember anything besides his name, even after recovering some coherent thought and having both Magus Wraith and Dr. Tygan try their tricks in him yielded no result. The good news was that the brain looked intact enough and some time would bring memories back. In the meantime, the lack of space made it impractical to throw Adam into a cell, so he was put under surveillance in the bar/memorial zone as soon as he was able to walk after two weeks thanks to good medikits.

So now he was babysitting him while most of the troops were on mission. It was easy, for the most part, he simply stared blankly at the list of fallen soldiers.

"How long has this been going on?"

"You should know, you worked for the enemy."

Adam showed him the scars of his hand.

"The enemy tried to kill me. In no merciful way, in fact."

"Point taken. But I am not convinced. It could be a subtler than usual approach to infiltration."

"Yes, so subtle that involves knocking out the infiltrator until his bones are broken."

He clenched his fist.

"Look. I don't know if it's true. I could be some sick bastard that processed all that people into green goo. If that's true… have that white-haired girl dissolve my brain and let Dr. Tygan serve it as hot soup. But, in the meantime, I would like to know more."

The kid had an attitude, Bradford conceded to himself.

"We have been organizing the resistance for several months now. We've lost people."

The Officer was tempted to order some alcohol from the bar, but he decided against it. He was 55 years old already, and his liver was punished enough after twenty years on the run with enough despair and sorrows to cope for a lifetime.

"I am sorry."

"For what, kid?"

"For the soldiers that fell to retrieve me. I am not that useful."

"It was worth it, kid. If only for the supplies. It's harsh, but we can recruit good soldiers now. Only one soldier would be irreplaceable."

"Wraith?"

"Yes. She's got the talent to be a Magus. She can mind control almost anything."

"Including me. It was really strange having her inside my mind. But it was a lot better than Dr. Tygan's mind probes, anyway."

"Well, the doctor is somewhat ruthless, but he knows what he's doing."

The interior communications announced the return of the Skyranger.

"Do you want to see it, kid?"

"Please. I was not conscious the last time and I don't even know if the sky is blue."

When Firebrand looked at the landing platform and saw Bradford accompanied by that battered up boy of the last time, she smiled and turned to Wraith.

"Your boyfriend's here. Such a sweet boy!"

In response, she got a low level psionic punch bruise.

"Ouch, did I hit a nerve, cowgirl?"

"C'mon, Wraith. Everybody knows that he is just your mind controlled boytoy."

Still laughing, they stepped out.

Then, the Grenadier started to launch her grenades to the sky and the troops took turns… to try and to blow them up with a gauss pistol.

"Interested, boy? The pistol's not a plasma one. That could be too easy."

The question and the subsequent explanation took Adam by surprise.

"Let him shoot! It will be funny."

"What do you say, Bradford?"

In response, Central took his plasma pistol out.

"Give him the weapon. If you try anything, kid, you are dead. Nothing personal. "

"I know. Well, if I die, at least it will be quick."

He took the weapon. It was heavy, or maybe his arm was not that healed at all.

"Shoot."

The grenade was launched. It was a trick, of course. A long distance supersonic shell, not even suitable for tactic battle, it was too fast even for the gauss pistol and it was rigged to safely defuse without exploding thirty seconds after the launch.

Adam new nothing about it. He raised his arm, considered the distance… and shot, pointing the pistol to the ground and taking the finger off the trigger immediately. There was no way to know how to secure a weapon like that. Everybody stared at him in astonishment.

Six second later, a flash of light reached the Avenger. Some ten seconds later, the sound of the explosion was heard.

Wolf was the first to react.

"Motherfucker. That was…"

"The core exploding, yes." The grenadier confirmed.

Adam offered the pistol back.

"You learnt it… somewhere."-Said Wraith. "Like a boot camp? The image was fuzzy."

"Then you saw more than me, Magus."

Bradford lowered his weapon.

"That was muscle memory."

On the Bridge, the Commander looked at the image closely. So the Informant wasn't bluffing. Good.


	3. Bruise

Being called a never seen before alien weapon had its perks, Adam considered. For example, he had his own cabin lest he slashed the entire crew's throats while they were sleeping or something; and a perfectly arranged schedule, at least while his personal attendant wasn't away on a mission.

"It's not funny."

"Sorry, sometimes I forgot you are inside my mind. Did you find something interesting?"

The unsettling purple eyes rolled.

"Nothing at all. I could barely get something when you are touching a weapon, or really concentrated reading something… complicated."

"So… The aliens have invented a crossbred of a library mouse and a weapons nut. No wonder Central is so concerned. I am a secret ultimate weapon!"

That time, she smiled.

"Look, I don't think you are their weapon. I am starting to think that you were their prisoner. It would make more sense."

He smiled sadly back at her.

"Maybe. But… Central went berserk when he realized I gave out the Avenger's position for all nearby Advent forces to see. He muttered something about shooting me in the spot

"He was mostly acting it up."

"How could you know?"

She smiled more broadly. He blushed a little at his own stupidity.

"OK, I am not used to having a literal mind reader for company. It's unfair. I know nothing at all about you."

"What do you want to know? Maybe my age? If I am single?"

"I was thinking more about your name."

"Wraith is my name. I had another before but… I don't want to talk about it."

Wolf entered the room. His grim didn't forebode any good.

"The Commander gave us the greenlight."

"For what?"

Wraith felt a little sorry for the poor bastard.

"You piqued their curiosity. The good doctor is going to monitor you while we run a little test."

It was Adam's turn to roll his eyes.

"I am going to wish those Mutons finished their work, am not?"

"Come on, kid. It's going to be way better than having her scrub your mind."

They made him run. A lot. Several soldiers started staring at him after a while, whispering. Shit. There was nothing worse than having true professionals poke fun at you. But Tygan'd asked him to run as long as he could, so he ignored the looks, his lungs on fire and the sweat and kept going. With no clock, every second expanded to grotesque spans of time. Until a voice, probably directly from the Heavens, addressed him.

"That's enough, kid. You can stop."

Adam felt to his knees.

"Oh, thank goodness. I am sorry. But I am no soldier, I cannot run…"

Wraith chuckled, Central handed him another beverage.

"How long do you think that you were running, kid?"

"Twenty minutes? Maybe half an hour?"

He pointed the windows. It was pitch black.

"Uh, there was no need to fly the Avenger so far just to play a prank on the new kid, sir."

Wraith explained the obvious flaw.

"Did you already forget how this mountain of bolts flies?"

"Wait. Then Wraith made me forget and…"

She crossed her arms.

"No."

"But that's absurd. The sun was really low when I started…"

"Absurd, maybe. But I saw it myself. You've been running for ten hours straight."

Astonished, Adam stood and looked around. The troops were gone, but Central, Wraith, Dr. Tygan and Shen were with him.

"Well, Doctor. Then there is some credence to the theory that I am some alien experiment. Can… can I take a shower?"

He left and the brass of XCom made his way to the bridge.

"Wraith?"

Central didn't need to make the question.

"Vague images again. There was something else, though… like someone else inside his mind. Pushing, reveling with the effort."

"More about the boot camp?"

"It was run by humans. Lots of children on uniform."

The Commander approached them. He'd been following the progress from the bridge.

"Nonsense. Advent troops are grown in vats, not trained from childhood."

"There is another thing, Commander. A city. A big one… with no trace of Advent."

Central looked concerned.

"Were they feeding him simulations too?"

"Maybe. He could be an infiltrator after all. There are some things about his thoughts that make me feel jumpy."

This time, it was Shen the one to grimace. She was playful after an entire day of working with her favorite projects, so she didn't let it slide.

"Oh, come on. He is a young boy and has been in contact with you for the best part of a month! Some thoughts are bound to make you jumpy!"

Central looked puzzled.

"Wait, how old is he?"

"The bone age indicates somewhere between 17 and 19. There was extensive damage, sorry."

The Commander facepalmed.

"Let's forget about that line of thought, ok, Shen?"

Wraith eyes widened.

"Wait, now that you mention it…"

"Oh, forgive me, Magus. I am sure it's more than enough to punch every man in the Avenger for having imaginative options about body armor."

"I am going to run my own test with your permission."

More whispers followed the prisoner to his bunk. Well, shit. He had enough problems before and he was starting to really think about the enemy. He closed his eyes…

And found himself instantly in bed with someone. The forms were female under the sheets and she was smiling to him. She closed her eyes and leaned for a kiss... before he realized what color her hair was. Then he bolted out of the dream.

"Oh, fuck. I am so dead."

Outside the door, Shen and Wraith were waiting.

"And?"

"Strange. No lust. He is more concerned about his brain being boiled."

Shen looked at her.

"You feel… insulted?"

Wraith looked offended by that comment.

"Of course not."

"Of course, I hear rumors. It's true. You like him."

"No!"

"Oh, come on. It's simply natural. He is the only male your age on board. And he is quite handsome, scars and all."

"I TOLD YOU! OF COURSE NOT!"

Adam exited his cabin.

"Who?"

He looked absolutely horrified when he saw the Magus.

"Sorry! I am sorry! Please, don't fry my brains!"

"Oh, someone is having naughty ideas about a certain Psyop?"

Even the skin around his scars was becoming paper white while he kept talking or more like rambling.

"It's not voluntary. I swear!"

"So, do something to compensate me. Tomorrow, after breakfast. On the Psi Lab."

"Yes, yes. Good night!"

He scurried back to his cabin and locked behind.

"Psi Lab? What are you going to do?"-Shen asked while they walked back to the bridge.

"I am going to discover the truth. Whatever it takes."


	4. Cut

Even if the discipline was a lot better after several months under the Commander's direct rule, some things were still as bad as before. For example, the troops kept smuggling the Advent Burgers on board their flying home. That could explain why nobody batted and eye when they saw Wraith take the little Marathon Boy out for an early morning ride.

Wolf understood the situation a lot better. He had known Wraith for more than a year already, and he could sense something was amiss about her attitude, so the Ranger followed them to their destination. He was not all that surprised to find it was the Psi Lab.

"Are you going to test him for psi abilities?"

"No. He has none, he's only marginally better than any of you."

"So?"

"I need a shielded room for this."

She took a syringe out of a fridge and showed it to Adam.

"This is a drug we use to enhance the potential subject's concentration."

The scarred boy nodded.

"So it will be easier to see something. Get it."

She tried to find a vein.

"Also, I need a shielding. You don't have any psi talent, all right. But your natural psi defenses are on par with anything I've had encountered before."

She finally managed to find an appropriate entry zone and injected the drug.

Wolf looked puzzled.

"Psi defenses? What?"

"I tried to inject several images inside his mind, big man. Only one passed and that was because… well, his subconscious was ready to accept it like his own."

Adam looked up to her, already more than a little worried and dizzy.

"I told you I am sorry."

She ignored him and started to build a Psi attack, the air filling with eerie purplish light.

"I am going to shatter the wall. You better go, Wolf. Seal the Lab."

The Ranger escaped as fast as he could. A null lance. To the head. Mercifully for the poor bastard getting the treatment, he didn't know what the hell it meant. He simply experienced the agony of a million deaths, his blood splattering the wall and his skull barely keeping structural integrity; while his neck struggled to keep everything properly attached.

He descended into the abyss of darkness and felt Wraith there.

"Good. The entire crew felt that one, but I am inside at last."

"Ouch. Yeah, after giving me a headache for the ages."

"Man up, whiny boy."

He looked to her psychic manifestation with a rising tide of anger.

"What the hell, Wraith? Yesterday we were all good. And today you put a knife through my head. Why?"

Her image frowned.

"It doesn't matter. Let's take a look at that past."

Adam was back in the city, under Advent care. The aesthetics were simple and the cult of the space saviors omnipresent.

He was being toured again. Under heavily armed surveillance, of course. Then, the Advent soldiers hurried him inside a building like any other and inside they found a mechanical bipedal monstrosity and someone with a black uniform… and white hair, their face covered by a visor. The body was new, but the attitude was the same as before.

"Once again, collaborate. The foolish humans are getting closer, soon they will be there."

"Fuck off, Ethereal."

The alien looked a little annoyed even inside his fleshy projection.

"So, let it be. Kill him."

Adam smirked, his disdain for the creature crystal clear even for Wraith's incorporeal presence.

"Yes, let them shoot me. It will be funny to see you repeat the mistakes."

The massive figures around him were panicked and dropped their weapons, just to have then disappear midair.

"Yes, a necessary precaution. They keep shooting even if we told them not to. Farewell."

Adam was surrounded with various of the so called Mutons. Wraith expected him to feel dread. Instead, she only found even more disdain.

"Your boss is a dirty coward. Bring it on, you brutes!"

One of the armored aliens threw a punch. The things amazement mirrored Wraith's when his several pounds fist was blocked by another, punier one. Bones were shattered and muscles were reduced to a screaming mass of blood and fibers, the wave of pain so intense that even the Magus felt it. Just then, Adam did something to his arm. He _ordered_ it to stop being twisted and begin functioning again. Tissues were rearranged and the appendage was functional again.

The Magus flatly thought "What?"

But Wraith question remained unanswered. Anyway, Adam's pain was still there. And even more suffering reached his mind when he managed to land a blow to the relatively unprotected head of one of the aliens. The sound of human and alien bones crushed to a pulp filled the air for a moment, just before two other Mutons landed their attacks simultaneously and broke most of his ribs and destroyed his spine. He spat blood and for a minuscule instant something akin of his own body schematics flashed in his conscience.

"I am not done, you mindless drones!"

He recovered. And kept fighting, for a time.

When the impacts started to come too fast to compensate, he felt no fear. Instead, only peace filled his mind. Peace, because he managed to sense the tide of the battle outside turning. The X marked warriors entered the room and blew the Mutons to kingdom come.

"Shit. They seriously didn't want us to capture the VIP. What a bloody mess."-It was Wolf's voice.

"Wait. He is alive."-this time, it was Wraith's speaking.

He could hear muffled sounds while they carried around him. And then, merciful darkness overcame him.

They were back in the Psi Lab. Wraith looked at the floor with a mixture of surprise, fear and something else neither of them could exactly point their finger to.

"You… killed a Muton with a blow."

He shrugged.

"I am more concerned about the fact that, apparently, I was capable of some sort of… painful… regeneration. Not that it helped me that much. Oh, you know that I don't remember how it's done."

They fell silent for a moment.

"Are you still mad at me, Magus?"

"Please, call me Wraith."

She dared to look at him directly and she was immediately frozen.

"What's wrong?"

She touched him for the first time.

"Your face…"

But she couldn't finish the sentence. The Avenger sounded the alarms and Central's urging voice was heard.

"Warning. The Avenger is under attack. All hands on deck! All hands on deck!"

They stormed outside the Lab and sprinted to the battle station. He helped her putting into the armor. Nobody asked exactly what he was doing there or why he just happened to know how to adjust the armor so fast. Or the fact she was practically naked in front of him for a brief lapse of time. They smiled at each other.

"I am going to make myself useful somewhere else. You just make sure to save my sorry ass for a second time, Wraith."

He saluted, but not with the standard salute. On the way out, he found one of the engineers

"Kid! Go to engineering and look to compensate any overload. It's easy, connect the conduits that go red to some of the green ones."

"Yes. On the double, ma'am!"

They were hit with some kind of energy weapon, Firefly, nearby, summed the situation perfectly.

"Fuck!"

But no explosion followed the impact, almost like…

"We are still on a piece!"

"But we are going down…"

"Brace for impact!"


	5. Bleed

Wolf was a little battered, but he could move. He saw two people laying close to him, one woman and a young boy.

"Are you two all right?"

The engineer grunted.

"Yes, Coronel. Well, any landing you can walk off, is a good one."

The other one, Adam, straightened himself.

"Well, this was a lot better than being hit with that big psychic knife of Wraith's, anyway."

The engineer looked both bewildered and skeptical.

"Why on Earth would she do that?"

"She was trying to help me remember. Well, at least it didn't leave another nasty mark."

Suddenly, Wolf grabbed him.

"What…?"

The enormous man looked closer.

"Your scars. Where the fuck are your scars?"

But before anyone could answer, Central shouted new orders.

"We are going to have a little chat, kid. But first your girlfriend and I are going to win this battle."

He left to reinforce the lines.

"She is not my girlfriend! She will kill me if she hears that!"

The engineer laughed.

"Oh, come on. She was really comfy having her clothes taken off by you."

Adam rolled his eyes.

"To put her armor on. After almost tearing my head apart. You XCOM are all nuts, aren't you?"

The engineer laughed again and parted, leaving Adam trying to avoid being trampled by the dozen or so soldiers moving to take defensive positions on the stern.

"Kid!"

Adam was relieved to see Shen walking to him

"Take this."

She handed him a holster with a gun.

"It looks different from the others."

She smiled.

"If necessary, they will activate it for you."

"A lot better than feeling naked."

He adjusted the holster without asking how it was done, Shen noted.

"Because, if I understand it well. Aren't we under siege?"

"We are working on it."

"If by working, you mean kicking massive amounts of ADVENT and alien troops, keep it up."

She looked more closely. The thin lips, the square jaw and the slightly aquiline nose were without blemish all of a sudden. She checked his fist. No scars, either.

"Where are your scars?"

"Why does everybody keep asking that? I…"

He noticed the change for the first time. If something, he had been feeling a lot better in the last two hours or so.

"I had them when I looked into the mirror this morning… I had them when I entered the Psi Lab with Wraith."

"She can drain some energy from enemies to heal herself, but…"

"She hit me with a big fucking psychic knife."

"Null Lance."

"Yes, whatever."

Shen looked horrified to the extreme.

"That makes enormous damage. What the hell was she thinking?"

"She was trying to get inside my head. It worked, by the way. Something about being hopelessly battered by green aliens appeared in this thick brick of a skull of mine. A certain leader or something ordered that greenish freaks to attack me."

Shen grabbed his left ear.

"You come to the bridge now, young man!"

"Yes, ma'am. Ouch! I will go, I promise! Please, let me go! What's with all the me-grabbing today?"

On the bridge, the Commander assessed the situation glumly.

"We cannot retreat until we destroy that machine… They never really attacked us before, and now we know why. They wanted the Avenger more or less intact."

Central had a certain way to be both superfluous and helpful, a character trait that she had retained from the first war.

The red alarms sounded and everyone jumped.

"What the…?"

The Commander observed the odd couple entering the room, the usually well-mannered Shen towing a whimpering boy to the center, and grinned.

"Alarm. Override."

Shen forced his prisoner to stand.

"Look at this piece of work. Tell me, do you see what I do?"

Central looked puzzled.

"Did Dr Tygan fix him?"

"No! The only fixing he had was in the form of a Null Lance, or so he says."

Central looked ready to shoot the boy on the spot. As usual. But the Commander saved the situation.

"Good. So you are the real deal, boy. Weapon. Commander Protocol Unlock."

The gun sizzled and Adam smiled while Shen voiced everyone else's surprise.

"What?"

"A month ago, the Informant contacted me with the whereabouts of a certain "subject" ADVENT was trying to study. They found he had… interesting properties. When hit, he was able to regenerate part of the damage. When hit by Psionic attacks, he was impossible to mind control."

"Well… I remember zilch of that. I am sorry, Commander."

"Stop being sorry and go make yourself useful, rookie."

"Yes!"

"Wraith will be watching! Don't make a fool of yourself in front of your girlfriend!"

He didn't respond. Enough with the girlfriend nonsense already. Was the ship so big before? He ran through the corridor for something that felt like eternity itself and reached the armory, where he took anything that could fit him. He somehow knew that the other weapons wouldn't work with him, so he took a knife out. Bringing a knife to a gunfight, that was really stupid but he had no choice.

Meanwhile, the battle was a stalemate for the time being. All the XCOM soldiers were in good cover, but the ADVENT MEC were formidable opponents and they kept protecting their inhibitor. Wolf was hiding behind a steep cliff while assessing his options for finishing off one of the more damaged enemies.

"I better do this before they bring Septopods."

He saw something black and yellow moving fast. Shit, a Viper. Before he could react something fell from the cliff and nailed the alien's head to the ground with a knife. The figure stood and caught its breath.

"Good to see you again, boy. Jumping into the battle, aren't you?"

Adam liked that joke better. Specially as he could have sworn that the Viper somehow glowed before he instinctively jumped to kill it.


End file.
